LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Democrats vowed Wednesday to push new gun-control legislation and to revive stalled bills in Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature following a mass shooting that left four high school students dead and others with serious injuries.
But GOP leaders, who have long opposed such measures and have favored looser restrictions, did not immediately commit to policy changes.
“We can’t do nothing,” Sen. Rosemary Bayer, a Democrat whose district includes Oxford High School, told reporters after senators held a moment of silence for the dead. “We have to take action. Right this minute, today, I think I really, really want to focus on the families and … just trying to help them know that we’re here for them, that we’re supporting them in any way we can.”
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said gun violence is a public health crisis. She called for unspecified “actions” beyond “thoughts and prayers” but did not elaborate. She has previously backed a measure that would let judges order the seizure of firearms from people who pose a significant risk to themselves or others.
In June, Bayer introduced legislation aimed at holding accountable adults who fail to secure their firearms. The 15-year-old charged in Tuesday’s slayings, Ethan Crumbley, used a handgun that his father had bought four days earlier.
The bill would require adults to keep a firearm in a securely locked box or container if they know it is accessible to minors. If a minor obtained the gun and used it to kill or injure, the adult would face up to five years in prison. There would be exceptions if minors have permission for activities such as target practice and hunting.
Republicans have not held a hearing on the measure or other gun-control legislation.
“If we get obsessed with eliminating all risks, we will then develop and evolve into a country we won’t recognize because we’ll also have no freedoms,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said. “It’s a balance. It’s a very narrow road. It is hard. These kind of events keep those thoughts in mind.”
He suggested there probable had been warning signs about the shooter, and he questioned how the teen accessed the gun.
“Those kinds of things are already controllable but for maybe just missing the signs,” Shirkey said.
Democratic-sponsored legislation introduced this session or in past years would, among other things, exempt firearm safety devices from the state’s sales tax and expand universal background checks to all gun sales.
Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Man—this is getting old—along with other things.
Attention brainless Democrats: You can control guns until Hell freezes over, but every single time, it is the user who determines how the gun is used and what outcome results from the use of it.
Another misguided attempt by the secular socialists to disarm empowered Americans whose equal and opposite response will lead to its own party destruction. Oppression, birthed of fear, anger, hate and resentment, by its very nature, creates the power that eventually crushes it in the end. The more they come after our personal property, free speech and Constitutional enshrined rights and in legislation try to take our guns away, the tighter THE PEOPLE will cling to their need for personal protection. It’s like the story of the argument between the wind and the sun to see who was more powerful. The more the wind blew to get the man to remove his coat ( Or Gun) the tighter he clung to it, but when the light of the sun’s warmth and truth came out, he quickly removed his coat. Those who demand imagined civil rights need only stop acting uncivilly. Law abiding people have no need to arm themselves until others become law-breakers beginning with the politicians and educators first, and the Capitol and Schools soon become unsafe places for even the innocent.
ASK those in australia, how NOT HAVING GUNS< is working out for them, RESISTING a tyrannical government!
I think that is a wonderful idea. Look at how well that worked out in Australia! They don’t have to worry about school shootings anymore because they are all in Covid Quarantine internment camps. NOT!!
AND NOTE< how often folks on the right, have said "JUST YOU WAIT< their gun control stupidity has stalled, so expect some 'INCIDENT to happen', to bring it to the fore front".
AND LIKE on clockwork, here's yet another school shooting, by a NUT JOB!
WHY IS IT they are all nut jobs?!
The treachery of the traitorous, socialist Democrat Party know no bounds.
How do you change— change the U.S. from a capitalist system’,
Into a Socialistic Democrat Party government controlled system. ??
1. Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people.
2. Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).
3. Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children and young people learn in schools and colleges.
4. Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
5. Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take from the wealthy and give to poor. Until there are only the poor.
6. Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level.
7. Gun Control — Remove the ability for the people to defend themselves from the Government. (“Socialist Democrat Party State”)
8. Poverty — Increase the poverty level as high as possible. Poor people are easier to control and will keep socialists in power if they are providing everything for them to live. Encourage, protect and support multi-millions of illegal immigrants who are poor, uneducated and disease ridden.
9. Allow illegal immigrants to vote and hold government positions.
Do these look like the tactics of the Democrat Party??
Spot on Scruffy!
Since the incident in Waukesha during a Christmas parade there has been no outcry to ban the ownership of SUV’s or forbid they’re manufacture yet six people died, the number associated with gub violence. Why isn’t SUV violence in the same category?
And the media makes no attempt to point out that a Black man with a 50 page rap sheet has murdered a number of white people with that SUV.
His mother blames the state of Wisconsin for her boy’s problems. What an ignorant twit!
ESPECIALLY since the leftist media, is BLAMING THESE DEATHS, all ON the SUV, not the driver..
Let’s see… Liberals think that Drug Use is SO BAD, that they give out needles (so drug addicts don’t share dirty needles) – rather than getting people OFF drugs.
How about applying that logic to Gun Violence?
If Gun Violence is SO BAD, why not give everyone a gun, so they learn Gun Safety?!
OR, how about merely teaching Gun Safety in schools (instead of indoctrinating kids into thinking that someone is EVIL, because of their skin tone)?!
Long ago I suggested protecting airplanes from hijackers by having naked passengers with guns. When AIDS came, I added that they should have condoms installed.
WITH how fat and ugly, folks are getting, i would rather NOT SEE these Jabba the hutts, in the nude… I’d rather not have to rip my eyes out of my head, thanks much.
Hey, Ituser, I actually gave you a five for that one.
Before I retired as a LEO, I use to go into 5th grade classrooms and educate the students. For several years, we had a pro-gun school superintendent who allowed me to go into all the 5th grade classrooms once a year for a gun safety class. That grade was decided on by educators and the Sup. Many teachers did not like it, but had to accept it.
He retired in the late 90s, about the time the school shootings were moving across the country and the program died.
HELL< NY is stupidly, GIVING THEM the drug of their choice now..
HOW INSANE is that!
There is a provision in the constitution that allows for amendments. Therefore, I suggest if the democrats want to outlaw guns, they come up with an amendment that says something like the following: “The congress may make any law to control the sale, distribution and use of guns in the several states”. Now if they can get that approved by 3/4 of the states, it is valid. Good luck with that.
Good luck is right.
That’s the thing, THEY WANT TO do it by dictate.. NOT by legal means.
the liberal socialist wholly grail – unarmed citizens.
The original “New World Order” plan was to have George HW Bush elected in 1980, then have Americans disarmed by the year 2000. Instead, Reagan got elected…. that’s why they tried to kill him six weeks into his presidency. It failed. They had to change the plan…… Bill Clinton was supposed to disarm everyone. It also failed. Bush 2 was no real champion of gun rights, Obama couldn’t get it done either. Then came Trump who was a MASSIVE setback to their plans.
Well stated and a blessing for this great country which is under constant attack from within.
I do know there is and has been an organized effort to disarm Americans for years.
While mass shootings might work in their favor to get rid of guns through legislation the left screwed up when they set loose anarchy in the country. Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Defund the Police and smash and grab have worked together to sell more guns in the last few years than ever before.
Who’s going to come and take ’em? The cops they defunded?
Na.. THE Militarized FBI, DOJ, and such..
In Michigan, we were slowly inching our way towards getting rid of concealed-carry permits and implementing Vermont-style constitutional carry. Looks like we can kiss that goodbye, at least for the time being…
Hang in there.
STOP ELECTING DEMONRATS to office then.
But they never talk about gun control over gun violence in Chicago ,Atlanta or D.C. Why is that ??
Ho-hum. Here we go again. Dummycrats get on their toy high horse to lecture us about gun control while they encourage lawless behavior from Antifa/BLM and dummycrat mayors defund or remove their police forces. Hypocrites with empty heads.
Pity THEY ARE not the ones getting victimized BY THE CRIMINALS they are coddling..